Suzanne Aalberse
University of Amsterdam, Linguistics, Faculty Member
- Heritage Languages, Teaching Heritage Languages, Syncretism, Language Variation and Change, Language Change, Case Marking, Argument Structure and Serial Verb Constructions, and 19 moreAspect hypothesis, Linguistics, Languages and Linguistics, Pragmatics, Linguistic Politeness, Syntax, Theoretical Linguistics, Education, Education Policy, Citizenship, Language Planning and Policy, Heritage language studies, Nominalization, Deverbal Nouns, Noun classification, Noun inflection, Complementation, Proper Nouns, and Adjectivesedit
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This exploratory study investigates the knowledge of word order in intransitive sentences by heritage speakers of Spanish of different age groups: 9-year-olds, 13-year-olds and adults. In doing so, we aim to fill a gap in the heritage... more
This exploratory study investigates the knowledge of word order in intransitive sentences by heritage speakers of Spanish of different age groups: 9-year-olds, 13-year-olds and adults. In doing so, we aim to fill a gap in the heritage language literature, which, to date, has mainly focused on adult heritage speakers and preschool bilingual children. The results from a judgment task reveal that child- and adolescent heritage speakers do not entirely resemble monolingual age-matched children in the acquisition of subjects in Spanish, nor do they assimilate adult heritage speakers. The data suggest that several different processes can occur simultaneously in the acquisition of word order in heritage speakers: monolingual-like acquisition, delayed acquisition, and attrition. An analysis of the influence of extraneous variables suggests that most of these effects are likely to be the consequence of quantitatively reduced input in the heritage language and increased input in the majority ...
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In the course of.the history of English, the forms of the second person singular were replaced by the second person plural, both in the pronominal system (thou, thee> you) and in the agreement system (hast> have) (Lass 1999). The... more
In the course of.the history of English, the forms of the second person singular were replaced by the second person plural, both in the pronominal system (thou, thee> you) and in the agreement system (hast> have) (Lass 1999). The use of a second person plural pronoun as a singular form of
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Boekbespreking van G. De Vogelaer, De Nederlandse en Friese subjectmarkeerders. Geografie, typologie en diachronie . [Gent:] Koninklijke Academie van Nederlandse Taal- en Letterkunde, [2008] – 447 pp. ISBN 978 90 72474 74 2.
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This chapter provides an overview of possible outcomes of language contact as a starting point for discussion on contact-induced linguistic variation in the heritage classroom. The rationale for this discussion is that variation awareness... more
This chapter provides an overview of possible outcomes of language contact as a starting point for discussion on contact-induced linguistic variation in the heritage classroom. The rationale for this discussion is that variation awareness will enable students to reflect on their language use without evaluative labels like correct and incorrect. An open mind to language variation is especially important in the heritage classroom, because the heritage language connects the students directly to their parents. Criticizing the variant the student speaks implies indirect critique on their parents and might cause the student to feel that they do not belong to their ethnic linguistic community because they do not speak properly. Knowledge of sources of contact-induced variation and sources of social values on variation will facilitate linguistic awareness and linguistic self-confidence.
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In the course of the history of English, the forms of the second person singular were replaced by the second person plural, both in the pronominal system (thou, thee > you) and in the agreement system (hast > have) (Lass 1999). The... more
In the course of the history of English, the forms of the second person singular were replaced by the second person plural, both in the pronominal system (thou, thee > you) and in the agreement system (hast > have) (Lass 1999). The use of a second person plural pronoun as a singular form of address was a widespread politeness strategy in medieval Europe (Betsch 2003, Haugen 1976: 303-304, Taavitsainen & Jucker 2003, Muhlhauser & Harre 1990: 145-150). Only in English and Dutch did this politeness strategy lead to the loss of the original second person singular. In this paper I focus on the question why English and Dutch lost the second person singular pronoun whereas other European languages did not. I argue that the loss is not only socio-pragmatically motivated, but also involves a language internal factor, namely deflection. In this paper I follow Brown & Gilman (1960) in the use of the symbol T (derived from Latin tu) as a generic marker for the informal singular pronoun an...
Heritage languages, such as the Turkish varieties spoken in Berlin or the Spanish used in Los Angeles, are non-dominant languages, often with little prestige. Their speakers also speak the dominant language of the country they live in.... more
Heritage languages, such as the Turkish varieties spoken in Berlin or the Spanish used in Los Angeles, are non-dominant languages, often with little prestige. Their speakers also speak the dominant language of the country they live in. Often heritage languages undergo changes due to their special status. They have received a lot of scholarly attention and provide a link between academic concerns and educational issues. This book takes a language contact perspective: we consider heritage languages from the perspective of their history, their structural properties, and their interaction with other surrounding languages.
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Vulnerable Inflection Smits & van Marle (2015) show the inflectional system is under pressure in heritage Dutch in the US: speakers tend not to recognize inflectional errors in perception tasks: The rejection rate of inflectional errors... more
Vulnerable Inflection Smits & van Marle (2015) show the inflectional system is under pressure in heritage Dutch in the US: speakers tend not to recognize inflectional errors in perception tasks: The rejection rate of inflectional errors ranges between 0-28% depending on the inflectional domain. Although speakers do much better in production tasks then in receptive tasks a well-known pattern in heritage speakers as shown by Bowles (2011), Montrul (2008, 2010, 2011) and Polinsky (2006) the error patterns in the production task also evidence the vulnerability of the inflectional system. Error rates range from 5% to 62% depending on the inflectional domain. On the basis of the success rate in the production and perception tasks Smits & van Marle (2015) formulate a hierarchy of inflectional robustness for Dutch: Nominal plural inflection > verbal inflection > adjectival inflection. The domain on the left of the hierarchy, nominal plural inflection is the most robust, speakers make ...
Research Interests: Sociology and Linguistics
This study investigates Spanish heritage speakers in the Netherlands on their judgments of Spanish mood in a syntactic context and in two interface contexts: the internal interface between syntax and semantics and the external interface... more
This study investigates Spanish heritage speakers in the Netherlands on their judgments of Spanish mood in a syntactic context and in two interface contexts: the internal interface between syntax and semantics and the external interface between syntax and pragmatics. The strong version of the Interface hypothesis predicts most vulnerability in the external interface context, and least in the syntactic context. The results of a scalar acceptability judgment task provide support for this hypothesis. We furthermore discuss other possibly relevant factors such as cross-linguistic influence, the default status of the indicative, order of L1 acquisition and variability and frequency in monolingual Spanish.
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This issue is the result of a colloquium with the same title organized at the ISB 10 conference at Rutgers, USA, in May 2015. All the presenters, the discussant and one additional colleague have contributed to this collection of articles,... more
This issue is the result of a colloquium with the same title organized at the ISB 10 conference at Rutgers, USA, in May 2015. All the presenters, the discussant and one additional colleague have contributed to this collection of articles, which brings together linguists from the domain of heritage studies with those working on early child bilingualism (ECB). A language qualifies as a heritage language (HL) if ‘it is a language spoken at home or otherwise readily available to young children, and crucially this language is not the dominant language of the larger (national) society’ (Rothman, 2009, p. 156). HLs are learned early in life, either simultaneously with the dominant language or prior to the acquisition of the dominant language of the country; heritage speakers (HSs) are thus early bilinguals. There is, however, a gap between linguists studying ECB and linguists studying HSs. Linguists working on ECB mainly look at the early development of both languages in children growing up bilingually from birth or shortly afterwards and tend to report on similar developmental patterns in monolingual and bilingual children, and on (temporary) delay, acceleration or cross-linguistic influence in this development, mostly in Western Europe and Canada (De Houwer, 1990; Meisel, 1990; Paradis & Genesee, 1996). Linguists studying HSs, on the other hand, mainly look at young adults’ competence in their HL and tend to focus on signs of incomplete acquisition, mostly in the USA (Benmamoun, Montrul, & Polinsky 2013; Montrul, 2008; Polinsky, 2006). This special issue brings together linguists from both fields to find out how to make the connection: to what extent can we observe similarities in the reported results on child bilinguals and HSs and to what extent do we observe differences? What motivates these similarities and differences? The contributions in this special issue all shed light on the comparison and thereby create new questions. We will briefly discuss some general factors that may influence different outcomes of early bilingualism over the lifespan (see also Hulk & Marinis, 2011).
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1. Articles 2. Is the Dutch Delay of Principle B Effect dependent on verb type? (by Akker, Saskia van den) 3. A first glance at the role of length in production and perception of diphthongs before Dutch coda l (by Berns, Janine) 4.... more
1. Articles 2. Is the Dutch Delay of Principle B Effect dependent on verb type? (by Akker, Saskia van den) 3. A first glance at the role of length in production and perception of diphthongs before Dutch coda l (by Berns, Janine) 4. Deaccentuation in Dutch as a second language: Where does the accent go to? (by Caspers, Johanneke) 5. Neuter gender in a sexless language: The case of Zulu (by Dreu, Merijn de) 6. Can speech pitch perception be measured language-independently? (by Heeren, Willemijn) 7. Obviation properties of the d-pronoun in Dutch (by Kampen, Jacqueline van) 8. V-stranding ellipsis and verbal identity: The role of polarity focus (by Liptak, Aniko) 9. Subject interpretation of object questions by Dutch 5-year-olds: The role of number agreement in comprehension (by Metz, Marijke) 10. The 12321 model of Dutch spelling acquisition (by Neijt, Anneke) 11. Thinking in the right direction: An ellipsis analysis of right-dislocation (by Ott, Dennis) 12. Against a minimal-augmented analysis of number (by Schepper, Kees de) 13. Easy to (re)analyse: Tough-constructions in minimalism (by Zwart, C. Jan-Wouter)
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This paper compares heritage speakers and second language (L2) speakers of Spanish with Dutch as their dominant language, in order to explore the role of age of onset and manner of acquisition in the nature of the knowledge (implicit vs.... more
This paper compares heritage speakers and second language (L2) speakers of Spanish with Dutch as their dominant language, in order to explore the role of age of onset and manner of acquisition in the nature of the knowledge (implicit vs. explicit) of the subjunctive. Differently from previous studies, all items were presented orally and in written form, so that language mode of presentation could be excluded as a confounding factor. Moreover, the groups were matched on their general proficiency in Spanish using both an explicit and an implicit proficiency task. The results showed that the L2 speakers outperformed the heritage speakers in the explicit knowledge task and vice versa in the implicit knowledge task, suggesting that differential task effects, which thus far have only been attested for morpho-syntactic phenomena, can be extended to interface phenomena as well. These findings imply that age of onset and manner of acquisition have an influence in the way knowledge is represented in these two populations, and moreover emphasize the importance of using different task types in bilingual research.